When the bartender rolls his eyes

South of the middle of nowhere

I arrived in Eagle Pass from El Paso around 4 o’clock, hungry and thirsty after seven hours driving. Bypassing the usual national chain fast food joints I stopped a place called Barney’s Bar & Grill, Best Eats, Coldest Beer in South Texas. Inside, Barney’s looked like a hundred other mom & pop eateries I had visited over the years; outdated tables and chairs, neon signs advertising beers that no longer existed, dog eared menus with old prices inked out, new prices added in ballpoint pen; a jukebox whining predictable country music.

I sat on the barstool nearest the door, ordered a beer, and studied my grandfather’s hand drawn map showing how to find the five acre property he’d given me in his will. The bartender brought my beer and scanned the map.

Coldest beer in South Texas

“That’s next to the Double Aught ranch. Real nice there by the river, cottonwoods all around the house. Mr. Gonzales and his wife been taking care of the house for years. You thinking about buying it?”

“No, Don Francisco was my grandfather. He died last year and left it to me. I’m just here to look it over.”

“Oh. Sorry about your dad. Your map looks good but just in case, stop at the Texaco outside of town on the 480 Loop. Pedro’ll tell you how to get there.”

A customer came in and sat on the bar stool next to me, dropped his worn leather gloves on the bar and ordered two Lone Stars. The bartender nodded and looked at me questioningly, how about you? I nodded back, sure.

There was a sheen of sweat on the guy’s face and his hair was pasted to his skull under his cowboy hat.

“Hard day? Damn hot, gotta be over a hundred,” I said.

“Yeah, and it’s even hotter when you’re working on asphalt.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m the crew chief for the road team. Maintain the roadways in the county. Fix potholes; sometimes there’s accidents. We clean up after.”

“How long have you been on the job?”

I ever tell you about the time me and..

The bartender was setting the beers in front of us, looked at me, and rolled his eyes thinking Ben's gonna talk this guy's ear off.

“Been at it near 24 years now. By the way, my name’s Ben Cooper.”

He half turned on his stool to face me and rested his elbow on the bar.

“I said I was the crew chief. Well, I am and I’m not. I only got one guy on my crew so it’s not much of a crew. We do all the repairs on two, three hundred miles of county roads hereabouts. Used to do it by myself but fifteen years into the job, the powers that be musta took pity and hired a guy to be my assistant. Sometimes, I wonder though, if maybe they gave me more work to do by adding the kid.

“Most of my time we’re in the truck going up and down looking to see if anything needs fixing, potholes, pick up the roadkill. Got most of the tools in the truck so if we see something we can fix it right off. Log everything we do and file a report with the state.”

“Ben, what did you mean about having more work to do with an assistant? Seems to me, the helper would do just that – help.”

“I thought that, too, but I guess it depends on if you’re helper is smart or not. And, come to think of it, some days a dumb one is better than a smart one and vice versa. Know what I mean?”

I shook my head, no.

“You seen those steel barriers on the road every time you cross over an irrigation ditch or canal? They’re put there so cars don’t fall in the canal and the passengers drown. Used to be those guardrails were so strong cars would crash into them, get totaled and the rails would hardly get a scratch. Good for the barriers but bad for the people that hit ‘em. Some bright engineer figured that maybe it would be better if the rails broke off if they got hit. That way the impact wouldn’t be so hard and the humans might get by with a coupla broken bones instead of landin' in the morgue." 

He sipped his beer, shook his head and said, "I'll betcha the Chief Engineer wondered what kinda engineers Texas Tech was puttin' out these days. 'Boy, we don't build stuff that's gonna break.' But higher ups musta figured different so now we got these break-away barriers. Praise be."

Lonesome roads

“Ok, but what does that have to do with your assistant?”

“I’m gettin' to that. See, at one time, the really strong barriers were a good idea but then somebody looked at ‘em and figured that not so strong was a better idea like I said. Same with people. Sometimes it’s better to have a helper that’s smart and sometimes it’s better to have one that isn’t.

“Fact is, sometimes I think Danny, that's my helper, was sent to help me and other times I think I’m his baby sitter.

“Don’t know for sure if he was born that way or if he got dropped on his head. Most folks think he was odd from the git go then got worse after the accident. Don’t get me wrong. You meet Danny now and all you think is ‘nice guy’, not a bad guy to know. But I’ll tell you what, he can be a trial sometimes.”

“What accident did he have?”

“There’s some question about that. Some think it was the Garcia boy’s fault with his drinkin' so much, but nobody actually saw what happened. Both Danny and Miguel were thrown out of the pickup when they hit one of the new barriers. Neither of them remembers anything.

“Miguel came out of it with a broken nose and arm. Danny was hurt less but wasn’t the same afterwards.

“Both of them liked to hang out at “El Indio Loco” down the road from here. “El Loco” had this cute little waitress they both wanted to date but, truth is, she didn’t date anybody far as I could tell. I think she was from Vera Cruz or some place like that and she had these dark, dark eyes. She come take your order and look at you like you was the man she was waitin’ for all her life. Miguel was smitten real bad and didn’t see that every man got the same look. In his mind, he could see himself and Rosalinda marry’in and livin’ happily ever after. So every payday and spare minute he had he’d hang around “El Loco” tryin’ to make time with the girl. Don’t know what happened to her. She just left town one day.

“The night of the accident the boys had spent most of their pay at “El Loco” and by closing time both of them were pretty drunk. Drivin' home they hit a barrier on 11 Mile Road.

“Not a year after the accident I get a call from the state office that they’re sending Danny to be my helper. Now, mind you, I never asked for an assistant but I was glad to have one. Drivin' around eight, ten hours a day all by yourself gets a bit lonesome so I was glad for the company.

“Danny was brought up on a farm like the rest of us so he knew how to use tools for most chores but pretty soon I started thinkin' something wasn’t right. He knew how to do everything he knew before the accident but couldn’t remember how to do anythin' new. I would show him how to do somethin' and he would do it right but couldn’t remember how to do the same thing the next day. That’s ok, I guess, our work isn’t complicated. He coulda been a smartass, the kind you couldn’t teach anything.

“I feel sorry for the kid but he doesn’t seem to be the worse for his condition. On the plus side, I can tell him the same stories and each time it’s the first time he heard it. That might sound weird but a man only has so many stories in him and things could get ugly if the listener starts sayin' stuff like, ‘not again’ or ‘you tell that again, it’ll be the last time.

“Tell you one thing though, I learned to keep the bullets in my pocket after the kid nearly killed me.”

“You have a gun in your truck?”

“Yeah, actually, it’s a 30 06. Lotsa times cattle or deer get hit by traffic and they’re injured so bad you gotta kill ‘em to stop the sufferin'. There’s no more pathetic sight in the world than a dumb animal that can’t do nothin’ about its injuries.”

“You’re helper almost killed you?”

The bartender gave Ben the side eye, slammed a tray full of glasses into the sink, flung the bar rag on the counter, and headed for outdoors for a smoke. Ben was winding up now.

“Oh, yeah, he almost did me in. Ever had good South Texas chili con carne? One day we stopped for lunch at "Mamacita’s" out on Pecan Street. Don’t let anybody tell you different, she makes the best chili in the state. You eat till you’re full but the hankerin’ for more stays with you for a long time after. Next day, of course, you’ll wish you had a snow cone 'steada toilet paper, but that don’t stop you from havin' more of that chili again.

Straight from the center of the earth

“Anyway, that day the chili was as good as ever but maybe the meat was left on the butcher block too long and mighta spoilt a bit. About an hour later we’re drivin’ along the Loop and my belly’s grindin’ and twistin’ and I get this mighty urge to evacuate my bowels sooner than later.

Last gas for 53 miles

“We pulled into Pedro’s Texaco, I grabbed the key off the wall and barely got to the toilet in time. I'm sittin' there moanin’ and groanin’, beggin’ God to help me, swearin’ vengeance on Mamacita, but nothing came out. Finally, I give this big push and the toilet bowl explodes under me. I thought for sure I’d shit my guts out. I tell you what, I was afraid to look.”

“The toilet bowl exploded?”

“The way Pedro told it, he and Danny were talkin' and Pedro spied the gun behind the seat and said could he see it. Danny took it out put it up to his shoulder, pointin' it at Pedro. Now, Pedro’s nearly 80 years old and he’s seen just about everthin' that can happen with a gun so he says don’t point it at me. And Danny says, ‘Hell, it ain’t loaded. Watch this.’

“Pedro’s old bones hit the dirt just a hair before Danny pulled the trigger. The bullet ripped through the wooden walls like they was paper smack into the toilet where I was dealin' with whatever Mamacita’s chili was doin' to me.

“Meanwhile, Sheriff Hernandez is drivin' by, hears the gunshot, sees ole Pedro layin' on the ground and Danny holdin' the rifle. So he pulls up to the scene and draws a bead on Danny, tellin' him to drop the weapon and get down on the ground. Meanwhile, I’m in the toilet and I finally get my wits about me and head out to see what’s goin’ on, ‘cept I forget to pull my pants up and I fall out the door.

"I see the Sheriff, Danny and Pedro face down in the dirt, the aught 6 near Danny. Right away I know what happened to the toilet bowl and somehow I remember every curse my Marine DI ever laid on me in boot camp and I’m hollerin’ at Danny, damnin' every sorry ancestor that made his existence possible, to no effect whatsoever.

“Pedro and Danny are still on the ground but they're lookin' at me and laughin'. The sheriff drops his gun, puts his hands on his knees, and nearly falls over he’s laughin’ so hard. And, me, standin' there with one hand on my britches, shit all over me, yellin’ several dozen obscenities I’d just invented.

“It took a while but the laughin’ stopped long enough for the Sheriff to hear what happened.

“Danny, he said, I’m citin' you for, heh, heh, negligent discharge of a firearm and if I could write you up for scarin' the crap out your boss, heh, heh, heh, I would. And, Ben, heh, you owe Pedro a chili-proof toilet bowl.’

“I told Danny to drive me home. He said, ok, but you have to ride in the bed.

“I guess I can laugh about it now and, really, the kid’s kinda grown on me. Sometimes he can be a wonder. A coupla weeks ago we found a Deer Crossing sign knocked down over by Mosquito Creek; had to go to the home office to get a new one. Anyway, we dug out the old post, put in another one, bolted on the new sign. As we’re drivin’ away Danny looks back at the sign and sees a deer crossing the road not 10 feet from the new sign. He says to me, ‘Gosh, Ben, I wonder how long he's been waitin’ to cross.’”

Ben finished his beer, time to go home. We said our goodbyes, and he left. The bartender came over and put a Boiler Maker in front of me and said, “It’s on the house. Ben's been telling that story for years. I musta heard it a thousand times."